Gonna try to get The Wife to watch some scary movie type stuff this spooky season. The challenge is that she doesn’t like over-the-top horror, and yet she found ‘The Exorcist’ boring (are you NUTS?!), and didn’t like ‘The Shining’ (WHAT?!?). So how do you thread that needle to find something scarier than those two, but not quite ‘Hereditary’ level?
- New Cubs reliever Enoli Paredes got to close out last night’s win with an easy 1-2-3, and you could see quite easily what the Cubs like about him:
- That is a fastball with SIGNIFICANT cutting action, which comes in at a low angle with good life. No wonder this guy almost never gives up hard contact – that’s just not a pitch a big league batter’s eye is trained to square up. We know the Cubs LOOOOOVE them some cut-rise fastballs, so I tentatively expect that they’re going to keep Paredes around throughout the offseason, even though they’ll have had him for precious little time, and even though he has no minor league options years remaining. They’re going to want this guy around in Spring Training.
- It was funny how Cody Bellinger was like, oh, yeah, obviously that’s foul, but then still had time to make it to third base for a triple:
- Bellinger is hitting .297/.361/.527/144 wRC+ the last three weeks. The overall season numbers still aren’t strong enough to make the opt out question a no-brainer in either direction, though. To that end, Bellinger has reportedly still not made an opt-out decision (to which I say, why would he have already decided? get all the data and then decide at the last moment, IMO).
- Seiya Suzuki:
- For what it’s worth:
- I don’t know whether the Cubs will actually land a top starting pitcher this offseason, but some of the criticisms I’ve seen are absolutely ridiculous. The Cubs have signed a top-3 free agent starting pitcher 4 times in the last 10 offseasons. Acting like they never do it is flat wrong.
- This is wild:
- Obviously it’s not “good” to have a non-losing season that does not result in a playoff appearance, but it’s crazy that even in the many, many, many years of the expanded postseason, the Cubs have never been “decent but not quite good enough” in consecutive years. Kinda weirdly damning, actually.
- If you’re looking for Halloween deals, Amazon has ’em gathered up right here. #ad
- The Pirates decided to do a thing:
- Obligatory denial from the Pirates front office (via the Post-Gazette):
โZero factor in the decision,โ Pirates GM Ben Cherington said. โAware of it, certainly. Iโm aware of the contracts that all players have. No factor at all, zero. And, no, Iโm not concerned. If youโre asking about optics going forward and how it affects business and things like that, no. Contracts are negotiated in good faith. Then they live out. We feel like we gave Rowdy lots of opportunity here this year. To his credit, he fought through some difficult times earlier in the year and fought his way out of it. Had periods of success and periods of frustration. This is just where we got to in the season. Had nothing to do with where the plate appearances were lining up.โ
- Pirates manager Derek Shelton told the PG that the timing was just about the minor league season ending, with a couple guys – INF Liover Peguero and OF Joshua Palacios – coming up. Ok. Ok. Maybe that makes sense … except neither player actually even started in the game, and only Palacios got a single pinch-hit at bat (a strikeout). But, yes, the Pirates URGENTLY had to get those two guys up for the experience and HAD to ditch the guy who just HAPPENED to be four plate appearances away from a $200,000 bonus. All just a terrible coincidence, absolutely foisted upon them by the baseball gods.
- I’ve seen people mention the Hector Neris DFA as though they were the same situation and that boggles my mind. Neris was DFA’d when he was for two primary reasons: (1) he was absolutely killing the Cubs bullpen(!); and (2) the Cubs were giving him a chance to catch on with another club before the playoff roster deadline on September 1 (which worked, by the way, as Neris is likely going to pitch for the Astros in the playoffs).
- The Chicago White Sox came back late against the Angels and thus did NOT set the new season loss record. The White Sox fans in attendance were very disappointed:
- It was the first time in 95 TRIES that the White Sox had come back to win when trailing after seven innings. Lol.
- Good memory: